Gender Recognition Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I, too, welcome you to the Chair of the Committee, Mrs. Roe. I also welcome both Ministers. Like the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), I hope that we can make good progress. I am particularly pleased that he is the Conservative spokesman, because he does a thoroughly efficient job and gets to the key issues.
We on the Liberal Democrats Benches do not have the luxury or stricture of a free vote on some of the issues because we have a manifesto policy to support the measure, as far as it goes. The Minister will know that, in a few areas, we do not think that it goes far enough in providing rights to transgendered people. I know that there is support across the parties for that—sometimes spread thinly, although we hope that it is sometimes spread thickly.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), who spoke on Second Reading, is not able to serve on the Committee. The volume of Home Office Bills probably needs no further remark. He cannot be in two places at once. The Second Reading debate was good and raised many of the issues that we will discuss. My hon. Friend raised the issues that we hope to raise.
I take the points made by the hon. Member for Daventry that there are concerns among religious and other communities and that those must be dealt with sensitively. However, we will set out why we believe that the human rights of transgendered people take precedence. We will use proceedings in Committee to probe the Government's defence of areas in which we do not feel that they have gone far enough.
This is a welcome piece of legislation. In fact, in terms of European jurisprudence, it might be overdue. We certainly would not want the Committee to hold up its progress.
Question put and agreed to.